LITR 4370 TRAGEDY Final Exam Samples 2017 (final exam assignment) Model Answers to Part 1. Finish Genre Definition

Part 1. Finish genre definition and example(s) from Midterms 1 & 2:

Faron Samford

5/2/17

What’s the Alternative?

          Genres are used casually in popular culture, as shortcuts by the audience to give them an idea of what the work will be about before they’ve seen the first image or read the first word. Dr. White sums this use of the term genre on his Introductions to Genre webpage “as a contract with the audience” that gives the audience an idea of what elements they can expect (Course website’s “Genre” page). For example, the alternative history genre lets the audience know a few elements to expect from the work. Alternative histories are usually placed in a world that has a common history with ours, but at some key event, the outcome was different. In the case of The Two Georges, that event is a treaty being reached between the colonies and England that prevented the American Revolution, and the colonies remaining a part of England until the present day world of the novel. In The Man in the High Castle, the event is the Axis powers winning World War II. While both are works of alternative history, they could also be classified as detective and spy stories, respectively.  Categorizing works into genres is no exact science by any means, though, because very few stories fit neatly into one box. As Kaitlyn Jaschek accurately states in her model midterm from 2015, “if one is looking for an exact box one will end up frustrated.”  Categorizing a work of literature into a genre is a way to group it by the elements that the audience would expect in the previously mentioned contract. As a way to classify genres so that they meet the elements of the implied contract, genres categorize works using three main categories; subject/audience identification, formal genre, and narrative.  

          The pop culture usage of the term genre is most closely associated with the subject/audience identification categorization of literary genres, because it “makes the connection between the subject of a genre and its audience” (Course website’s “Genre” page). As described on Dr. White’s Alternative Futures class site, the alternative futures genre, and its subgenre of alternative history, ”mostly operate from a ‘what if?’ premise.”  Categorizing a work as alternative history lets the audience know that they are about to embark on a favorite pastime of humans, wondering “what if?” In historical fiction, the ”what if” concept is used to create a world that most often serves as a backdrop for another type of story. The Two Georges, by Harry Turtledove and Richard Dreyfuss, is a detective story set in modern times in a world where the “what if” revolves around the American Revolution never happening. The story is based around the theft of a painting called The Two Georges, which depicts George Washington and King George signing a treaty that kept the revolutionary war from happening. This painting is stolen, and the hero embarks on a quest to find and recover it while travelling through the world the authors imagine to have evolved in the absence of an independent USA. One of the results of this world has the hero faced with the challenge of the “Sons of Liberty,” an extremist group that wants America to leave the British Empire. Pursuing them through this world has its unique challenges, such as planes only being used by the military, so all travel is by train, air ship, or steamer. In this example, the goal of the hero is to preserve this new world created through this alternate timeline.  The Man in The High Castle, a current television series on Amazon based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Phillip K. Dick,  is based on the “what if” where Germany and Japan defeat the United States and its allies in World War II, and focuses on the resistance movement in this alternative 1960s America. The hero is drawn into the American resistance movement, which primarily revolves around the search for films that depict history as it happened in what the audience would consider the real world. In order to get access to more information, she goes into the Nazi-controlled Eastern Portion of the United States as a spy for the resistance.  At its heart, Castle is primarily a spy story which happens to be set in this alternate reality.

          The way that genres overlap is what often creates the first foray into alternative history works by most readers. As with Georges, a reader who is interested in crime novels would read this work based on their current interests and find that this new and interesting world is an aspect that is alluring to them. This is how I discovered the genre myself. I was looking at a section of crime novels in the library when I noticed that Richard Dreyfuss, who I had enjoyed many of the movies in which I had watched him perform, was a co-author. So I picked up the novel and when I read the synopsis, was intrigued. I was previously unaware of the genre, despite being an avid reader. After reading the book, I was fascinated by the concept of alternative history, and began looking for other works in the genre. In much the same way, fans of spy stories could come across Man in the High Castle and become engrossed in the concept of an alternate past, which would lead them to look for other works of the genre. Alternative history is not as widely known as other genres, and many of its fans often discover it by reading or viewing works that could be categorized in a more familiar genre. By combining these genres, an author greatly increases the potential audience of their work. Just as Georges and Castle can introduce fans of detective and spy novels to the alternative fiction genre, fans who have already discovered the genre can gain an appreciation of detective and/or spy stories from sampling the multiple genres that overlap with alternative history. While most audiences tend to look for works that fit into what is considered the subject/audience identification style of classifying genres, the literary world also classifies genres based on the form in which they take.

          Another way to classify a genre is by its formal genre style, or “the form in which the text appears; specifically, the types and numbers of ‘voices’ that present the genre,” varies slightly among works of historical fiction, but is primarily presented as a narrative plus dialogue style (Course website’s “Genre” page). This means that the story is presented via a narrator, as well as witnessing the characters interact with each other. Since the story is set in this alternate world that the authors have created, using this style combining narrative and dialogue allows the author(s) to expose the audience more fully to this world they’ve gone through the trouble to create. The Two Georges is presented in this style. Through this style, not only is the reader able to witness to the conversations between the hero and John F. Kennedy, who is a tabloid newspaper editor in this world, but is also able to be informed by the narrator that he is deeply connected with the Sons of Liberty group, the antagonists of much of the novel. This gives the audience a deeper view into this world. Man in the High Castle was originally released in novel form, utilizing the narrative plus dialogue style that is more common to the written examples of the genre.  Presented as a television series, the narrator is removed and all of the action and conversations play out on screen in the form of drama, where the characters are interacting with each other and exchanging dialogue while the audience watches and hears. Conveying the story in this manner has the advantage of being able to submerse the reader further into this imagined world. By being able to show details, and give a visual representation to the different world that is not limited by the imagination of the reader, or the author’s need to advance the story without losing the interest of the reader by delving too deep into descriptions of the setting. As the old cliché states, a picture is worth a thousand words. Instead of the narrator telling the reader about Nazi flags flying from buildings in downtown New York City, there’s a greater emotional impact from actually seeing them fluttering in the breeze atop buildings. This allows visuals to replace the role of the narrator by showing the audience, rather than telling them about the action, or the setting. This is not to say that a visual presentation is necessarily better. The written form can allow the author to focus more on the details that enhance the plot, while the visual media can let the audience get lost in comparing the differences of the imagined world to the real one, distracting them from the intended focus of each scene.

In addition to the subject/audience identification and formal genre style, a genre can also be classified by its narrative genre which “refers to the type of story or plot that a work of literature tells or enacts” (Course website’s “Genre” page). The narrative classification is divided into four types of stories; tragedy, comedy, romance, and satire. Alternative histories typically fall under the narrative genre of romance, which “often includes a hero’s quest, showing all of the trials and tribulations until the original goal, or prize, has been met” as explained by Karissa Guererro in her model assignment from 2015.  The Two Georges is an adventurous journey through this alternative America pursuing the thieves of the painting, and trying to stop the terrorists. Works in the romance genre often revolve around a separation and the trials and tribulations met by the hero to resolve this. In Georges, this separation is the theft of the painting and the heroes must work to have it returned before the visit of King-emperor Charles III, who will be making a state visit to the city of Victoria, which would be Washington D.C. in our world. The painting is recovered in true romantic fashion, with only an hour to spare before the king-emperor arrives. After recovering the painting, and the arrival of the king-emperor, the heroes foil two assassination attempts on the king-emperor. This leads to the moment of transcendence, and living happily ever after. The terrorists have been foiled, and the hero has saved the day and been knighted. The Man in the High Castle also begins with the romantic separation. Julie Crain is the protagonist who is separated from her sister when she is gunned down in the street. She learns that her sister was working in the resistance helping to transport movies showing the US and its allies winning World War II; an alternative timeline to the characters of the series, but reality for audience. Juliana submerges herself into the resistance movement after watching one of the films and is desperately seeking the source of these movies to find out their origin, and why her sister was killed for them. The characters are motivated by “a vision of transcendent grace” as they search for the meaning of the movies in which they’ve spied a world with our history, where they are free from living under the rule of the Nazis and Japanese.  

          Using these three approaches to categorizing genres can give a potential audience an idea of what can be expected from alternative history to some extent. Since many of the genres overlap into each other, and no work truly falls completely into one finite category, choosing a work of alternative history doesn’t mean that you can tell all you need to know about it just from the genre.  While clearly not definitive, genre is a convenient tool that can be used to not only help give one an idea of some of the elements to expect from a particular work, but also to allow people to find other works they may be interested in, as well as a way to organize all the different stories encountered in one’s mind.